7 Ways to optimize your Facebook fan page

This may sound like a no-brainer. However, it's the most basic step when it comes to optimizing your brand on Facebook, and is also the most important.

There is always the temptation to stuff your fan page name with tons of keywords, like "Bob's Bakery - Muffins, Bagels, Cookies, Breads - Catering & Events." In actuality, having a name like this can hurt your viral growth rate inside Facebook. If you appear too spammy, your fans will be less likely to engage with your page, let alone share posts and updates with their friends. In fact, people can even hide your updates from their news feed - imagine the horror!

Don't be too generic either, though. Facebook's intent behind fan pages is that they represent real businesses, brands, personalities, etc. By choosing something too generic, like Travel, Sports, Fishing, etc., you run the risk of Facebook shutting down your ability to post updates and reach out to new fans.

Quick Tip: The first word in your fan page title is given the most weight (importance) by Google.

2. Create a custom fan page vanity URL

After your fan page has 25 Likes, Facebook gives your you the ability to create a unique URL (or usernames as Facebook calls them) for the page. Because URLs are heavily weighted by search engines, it is vital that your fan page URL reflects an aspect of your business.

If, by some misalignment in the stars, you find that another fan page has claimed your business' name already, make sure to include what your business is about in the URL.

Just like traditional websites, keyword optimization is the most fundamental form of on-site SEO. The most important pieces to pay attention to are the About section, Mission, and Company Description, since these areas are actually pulled from your fan page as SEO elements.

To optimize your page for local searches, it is very important to include your Address, City, State, and Zip. For product-related searches, the Company Overview, Mission, and Products fields should be filled in with your appropriate information.

Quick Tip: Just like your website's meta data, you may want to consider using a brief, 140- character description for your fan page so your whole message displays in the search engine's snippet.

4. Include your phone number and address

As surprising as it sounds, there are a good amount of businesses out there that don't include this type of info on their fan page. As a majority of your sales may be from online traffic, it can appear to be not quite so important for you to include. But remember, indexing your brand for local search results is crucial to growing your Facebook fan page.

In addition, Google places higher importance on pages with specific information like your business's phone number and address. So, pages that include this type of data can effectively increase your brand's overall SEO.

5. Backlink to your fan page on existing channels

The more inbound links to your page, the more authoritative your page is according to Google, and you will be ranked higher. That is why it is very important to bloggers when they have their content linked to from other websites, blogs, etc.

This same principle applies to your Facebook fan page. So, where it is appropriate, include a link to your fan page from your other digital channels, like your website, blog, and Twitter profile.

6. Optimize Facebook fan page status updates

When posting updates to your Facebook wall, remember that the first 18 characters of a Facebook post serve as the meta description. So, take advantage of the option when Facebook prompts you to "Write something..." since that text will be considered the SEO title for that update. Including direct links to your small business website in your updates is also a good practice to follow.

Quick Tip: Just like your fan page's name, Google places a higher importance on the first word of your update, so you may want to consider making that a keyword.

7. SEO for Facebook Notes

Facebook Notes is something that is very under-utilized. When used appropriately, Facebook Notes can provide your fan page with an effective way at increasing your overall SEO. The SEO elements pulled in from Facebook Notes are:

SEO Title = the title of your noteMeta data = Your fan page name wrote a note titled, your note's title

Facebook Notes gives your page the ability to create multiple "pages" underneath the main fan page. Notes are also a good way to expand on special offers or events that your business is hosting and have them indexed in search engines.